Mod News The Witcher - uncut dialogues unlocked

[Ausir]

Tags: CD Projekt; Witcher, The

<b>1eyedking</b> announced <a href=http://rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=21829>in our forum</a> that he managed to unlock the original, uncut version of the English-language dialogues in <a href=http://www.thewitcher.com>The Witcher</a> (which were butchered by Atari in the released version). Here's a step-by-step instruction how to do it:
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<blockquote>
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1. Open Windows's Registry Editor (Start->Run->type "regedit"). Navigate towards 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWARECD Projekt RedThe Witcher' . Double-click the 'Language' tab. Enter '1' in 'Value Data' without the commas. Close the Editor (it saves the changes automatically).
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2. Go to your Witcher's Data folder inside the directory where you installed the game.
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3. Rename 'lang_3.key' to 'lang_1.key'.
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4. Rename 'dialog_3.tlk' to 'dialog_1.tlk'.
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5. DO NOT rename anything else. The game will still look inside voices_3_00.bif to get the dialogue wave files, for example.
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</blockquote>
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Cheers, <b>1eyedking</b>!
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<b>Update</b>: It seems that while the uncut dialogues are restored this way, there is also a side effect - some parts of the journal are in Polish instead of English.
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There has also been an <a href=http://www.thewitcher.com/forum/index.php?topic=5326.450>official response</a> by Michal Kicinski, one of the founders and joint CEO of CD Projekt, regarding restoring the cut dialogues:
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<blockquote>
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We know, we know. We noted it when first comments appeared. Yet, it is huge task and in comparison to other stuff, priority is not that high. But, we WON'T forget about it. Some day you'll see (surprised
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</blockquote>

 

[denizsi]

How about scripted scenes? I also read that the original dialogue had different script files due to the longer scenes. So, has this been tested?

 

[MasPingon]

It's working but someone need to mod this.It's unplayable at this state

 

[Ausir]

How so?

 

[BillyOgawa]

Hrm, now I'm wondering if I should keep playing the game or wait for the uncut dialogues to be modded back in.

 

[Dgaider]

That wouldn't change the English language VO, I assume? I kind of doubt they'd ship the game with all that extra VO on the disc. So you'd be reading the expanded subtitles and hearing the shortened VO? I'm not sure that would be an improvement.

 

[Shannow]

That wouldn't change the English language VO, I assume? I kind of doubt they'd ship the game with all that extra VO on the disc. So you'd be reading the expanded subtitles and hearing the shortened VO? I'm not sure that would be an improvement.

You're not sure? I think it sounds like the Infinity Engine games. Where some dialogue had VO. At least the first two sentences of the longer more important dialogues.

Since it is a mod/workaround here it'll probably be more "jarring" but I'd be willing to give it a shot.
Since I'm still occupied with Gothic 3 I can hope that some mod/patch will make the full dialogue content available and playable before I start the game.

 

[SpaceKungFuMan]

That wouldn't change the English language VO, I assume? I kind of doubt they'd ship the game with all that extra VO on the disc. So you'd be reading the expanded subtitles and hearing the shortened VO? I'm not sure that would be an improvement.

Maybe you can turn off voice overs by setting one of the volume levels at zero? Personally, I'm hard pressed to think of a less useful "feature" in CRPGs than voice overs (other than player skill based combat of course). I usually skip them anyway once I've read the line of dialog. What I wouldn't give to return to a world where there could be more varied dialog because the cost of voice acting wasn't an issue.

 

[Serious_Business]

I'm not sure that would be an improvement.

Of course you wouldn't. Not only because Bioware wastes all (and I mean ALL of them) its ressources on useless voice acting (if there weren't voice acting the game would be 20 hours longer), because, they are evil, and corporate, and, sellouts.

Also, BioWHORE (notice the clever insulting word play) doesn't give exact release dates years in advance for its games and is thus unprofessional, and doesn't respect their fans, who give them their money, so this makes them worst than thieves and criminals.

Moving on; does this thing really work or what?

 

[Ausir]

1eyedking reports on the official forums that he just finished Act 1 with long dialogues without any crashes.

 

[pug987]

That's nice to know. Now is there a way to replace the english voices with the polish voices so we can have the polish audio with the extended english subtitles? (I don't speak polish but from a video I saw in youtube they seem pretty well done).

Also, perhaps there will be mods that fix all these when the editor is released.

 

[Walkin' Dude]

I hate voiceovers. I can read just fine, thinks. I do not have the patience to sit through some obnoxious character babbling on. I would rather be playing the game, thanks. If I want to watch a movie, I will watch a movie.

 

[Ausir]

Would be cool if CD Projekt released an official patch for those who prefer longer dialogues to voiced dialogues.

 

[Hümmelgümpf]

I doubt Atari would appreciate it.

 

[Dgaider]

You're not sure? I think it sounds like the Infinity Engine games. Where some dialogue had VO. At least the first two sentences of the longer more important dialogues.

Yes, but in those cases what you were reading was the same as what you were hearing. Here we're not just talking about shorter, we're talking about different wording altogether.

If there is a way to simply shut off the VO and read the expanded dialogue, I'd be interested in that. I'm enjoying the Witcher, and I wouldn't mind seeing the originally intended dialogue at all.

 

[Nedrah]

I'm sure a way to do that will be found. If it can't be done via some ingame sound settings, something like replacing the sound files with empty files might work... or what the hell do I know, but I would be pretty surprised if turning off VO while keeping music and sound was a problem.

That being said, I think it would be a lot cooler if VOs could somehow be kept for unaltered parts and silenced for the enhanced stuff.

 

[slak]

The US version is censored (no nipples or naked dryads) and the european is not, does this further uncensor the european version or does this only apply to the US version?

 

[Suicidal]

That's great to know, but I intend to play for the first time without changing anything and will play with the tweaked dialogue for the second time. I want to see how one version differs from another.

 

[Ausir]

The US version is censored (no nipples or naked dryads) and the european is not, does this further uncensor the european version or does this only apply to the US version?

Yes, this is unrelated to censorship. Atari simply cut the dialogues down to save on voice over recording.

 

[Sir_Brennus]

I hate voiceovers. I can read just fine, thinks. I do not have the patience to sit through some obnoxious character babbling on. I would rather be playing the game, thanks. If I want to watch a movie, I will watch a movie.

Yeah, and if I want to read a book, I will read a book.

 

[Zomg]

Didn't someone say they were able to get the Polish VO with English subtitles? Put the two together and you get the arthouse mod (I forgot who coined that), at least once a nice Pole translates whatever segments aren't in the long English script.

Also, to inject a little nuance in the EE snarling, voiceacting can be an absolute good thing without being a relative good thing. I think you can get immensely more artistic bang for the buck with prose, but good VO can do quite a bit, too.

 

[Texas Red]

Didn't someone say they were able to get the Polish VO with English subtitles? Put the two together and you get the arthouse mod (I forgot who coined that), at least once a nice Pole translates whatever segments aren't in the long English script.

In the other thread some pole commented on a dialog that both the Polish and English scripts are the same "butchered" ones compared to the original script.

 

[Ausir]

The Polish script was cut down in a few places, but it's still much longer than the English one.

 

[Fresh]

Good stuff! I'm gonna try it out.

 

[Humbert Humbert]

This sounds good, but I'm guessing (and correct me if I missed something) this means I have to start a new game in order for it to take effect?